Thursday, July 21, 2005

Leave Your Wife, Sign Up For OpenRAW

Something I totally forgot to mention here is OpenRAW. Leave your wife, get rid of your kids, but don´t forget to sign up for OpenRAW if you care about the future of your digital image files. Remember: if you bought a Canon EOS D30 for a lot of bucks in the year 2000, you won´t be
able to open your old files with the actual version of Canon´s
professional DPP software 1.6.1.

OpenRAW is not a company, it´s a very fresh movement like OpenSource or the Wikipedia:

This site was created to give photographers and everybody interested in
an open documentation of proprietary RAW formats a place to voice their
opinion and to encourage camera makers to openly document their
proprietary RAW formats.In the short history of digital photography, manufacturers have
released numerous cameras with constantly evolving RAW formats. This
has lead to the existence of a vast number of RAW "dialects," even
within each major brand, that store image and camera setting data in a
different manner.In some cases manufacturers have even encrypted the data within
newer RAW files. Intentionally or not this encryption has placed full
access to the images stored in these files out of reach of the
photographers that took them. Unless, of course, they limit themselves
to tools sold by the camera manufacturer.To date, this vast number of RAW formats has been hidden by the
transparent support offered in RAW converter software, provided by both
the camera manufacturer and various third parties. At the time of
writing, the open source dcraw converter currently supports no less
than 163 formats. However, as manufacturers lose interest in their
discontinued products, and drop support for them, the true impact of
all of these "dialects" will be felt.Photographers will find their older images inaccessible, as future software versions lose support for older cameras. In the worst cases, entire brands may disappear, as has already happened with Contax.

Shortly, these problems include:

Limiting processing choices and creative freedom

Reducing choices for software that matches workflow needs

Increased probability that as time passes a RAW file will be unreadable or cannot be used to reproduce the photographer's original interpretation

Currently the Adobe DNG format does not meet the goal of OpenRAW. At
this time (May 18th, 2005) no available cameras write DNG format files.
To use DNG files, existing RAW formats need to be converted.
Unfortunately, since most current RAW formats are not fully documented,
the conversion from RAW to DNG is still based on reverse engineering of
undocumented metadata (tags). Therefore it is possible to misinterpret
or lose critical information. Billions of existing RAW images have
already been archived. Only open documentation of past and existing RAW
formats can ensure full utilization of these archived RAW files.

DNG also allows "private data" to be stored in the DNG file. This
private data is only known to the camera company that wrote the private
data. Third party software that reads and/or writes DNG files will
ignore private data recorded by the camera. Only the software written
by the camera maker will read the private data written to the DNG file
by its camera. Some of this private data might be important or useful
information needed by a RAW converter. Adobe's DNG format does not
eliminate the problem of undocumented RAW files but transfers the
problem into another "container", the DNG file. By allowing private
(undocumented) data in the DNG file, DNG does not meet OpenRAW's goals.

OpenRAW encourages you to "Act now!": sign up the Open Letter of OpenRAW and send it to the camera maker of your choice, or each of them listed.

PS. Personally I´ve stepped back to film. From the image processing lab, I get prints, an overview print, a CD with all the files and -- negatives/slides. The problem is that it has become hard to find a lab capable of processing B/W-films. But that´s another story.

Comments

Leave Your Wife, Sign Up For OpenRAW

Something I totally forgot to mention here is OpenRAW. Leave your wife, get rid of your kids, but don´t forget to sign up for OpenRAW if you care about the future of your digital image files. Remember: if you bought a Canon EOS D30 for a lot of bucks in the year 2000, you won´t be
able to open your old files with the actual version of Canon´s
professional DPP software 1.6.1.

OpenRAW is not a company, it´s a very fresh movement like OpenSource or the Wikipedia:

This site was created to give photographers and everybody interested in
an open documentation of proprietary RAW formats a place to voice their
opinion and to encourage camera makers to openly document their
proprietary RAW formats.In the short history of digital photography, manufacturers have
released numerous cameras with constantly evolving RAW formats. This
has lead to the existence of a vast number of RAW "dialects," even
within each major brand, that store image and camera setting data in a
different manner.In some cases manufacturers have even encrypted the data within
newer RAW files. Intentionally or not this encryption has placed full
access to the images stored in these files out of reach of the
photographers that took them. Unless, of course, they limit themselves
to tools sold by the camera manufacturer.To date, this vast number of RAW formats has been hidden by the
transparent support offered in RAW converter software, provided by both
the camera manufacturer and various third parties. At the time of
writing, the open source dcraw converter currently supports no less
than 163 formats. However, as manufacturers lose interest in their
discontinued products, and drop support for them, the true impact of
all of these "dialects" will be felt.Photographers will find their older images inaccessible, as future software versions lose support for older cameras. In the worst cases, entire brands may disappear, as has already happened with Contax.

Shortly, these problems include:

Limiting processing choices and creative freedom

Reducing choices for software that matches workflow needs

Increased probability that as time passes a RAW file will be unreadable or cannot be used to reproduce the photographer's original interpretation

Currently the Adobe DNG format does not meet the goal of OpenRAW. At
this time (May 18th, 2005) no available cameras write DNG format files.
To use DNG files, existing RAW formats need to be converted.
Unfortunately, since most current RAW formats are not fully documented,
the conversion from RAW to DNG is still based on reverse engineering of
undocumented metadata (tags). Therefore it is possible to misinterpret
or lose critical information. Billions of existing RAW images have
already been archived. Only open documentation of past and existing RAW
formats can ensure full utilization of these archived RAW files.

DNG also allows "private data" to be stored in the DNG file. This
private data is only known to the camera company that wrote the private
data. Third party software that reads and/or writes DNG files will
ignore private data recorded by the camera. Only the software written
by the camera maker will read the private data written to the DNG file
by its camera. Some of this private data might be important or useful
information needed by a RAW converter. Adobe's DNG format does not
eliminate the problem of undocumented RAW files but transfers the
problem into another "container", the DNG file. By allowing private
(undocumented) data in the DNG file, DNG does not meet OpenRAW's goals.

OpenRAW encourages you to "Act now!": sign up the Open Letter of OpenRAW and send it to the camera maker of your choice, or each of them listed.

PS. Personally I´ve stepped back to film. From the image processing lab, I get prints, an overview print, a CD with all the files and -- negatives/slides. The problem is that it has become hard to find a lab capable of processing B/W-films. But that´s another story.